ARC EoE is following NIHR guidelines in our response to the COVID-19 crisis. All our applied research involving patients, care home residents and other people is paused except any focused on the prevention or management of COVID-19.
As a result, researchers in person-facing health, social care and other professions can be redirected to support the font line. The Fellowship programme has been extended to the end of 2021 to allow ARC fellows in provider organisations to remain connected beyond the crisis; the lecture series for implementation fellows continues to be streamed to a national audience; other elements of our capacity-building programme have also been adapted.
The ARC core staff are working from home their offices at Douglas House are available to CPFT, our host trust, to accommodate a clinical team. We have stopped all but essential (e.g. payroll and reporting) business-to-business contact with NHS and social care partner organisations.
Thus, the ARC currently has less capacity, and many colleagues are stretched, but our capability, networks and collaborations are a valuable resource in these challenging times. Our remaining research infrastructure is being redirected as surge capacity for the response to COVID-19 within an active local and national (e.g. NIHR, UKRI, Wellcome Trust, PHE) discussion to coordinate priorities.
Several themes are already responding and you can read more about the COVID-19 Projects, Innovations and Information on the following page.
At this time of difficult decisions and priority setting the voice of patients, carers, the public and the community are very important. Our PPIE advisors and links with our populations-in-focus keep our work connected to real communities.
25th March 2020